Tag: Baki Kongoli

This is the tenth in a series of posts containing PDFs of texts that may be of interest to those studying Albanian socialist realism. I am still in the process of planning several posts with actualcontent—that is, analysis, rather than simply more scanned texts—but they are still some ways off, so I’m going ahead and posting more scans for the time being.

Today’s (rather short) text is some selections from the March 1955 issue of Nëndori, the monthly journal of the Albanian Union of Artists. The issue contains the texts of some of the talks given at the annual plenum of the Union, as well as a summary of the events and discussions that took place. Given that the Union had been in existence for only about two and a half years at this point, it is particularly interesting to read painter Foto Stamo’s assessment of “The Development in the Figurative Arts” at this early stage in socialist Albania’s cultural project.

Of equal interest is Baki Kongoli’s “Activity of the Union of Artists from its Beginning till Now,” which summarizes the Union’s work in the preceding two years. In part this overview is notable because it specifically makes note of the help given by outside artists and cultural producers (such as composers, painters, and sculptors from the Soviet Union) to Albanian artists. Even more interesting, however, is the fact that Kongoli’s assessment of the Union’s efficacy largely takes the form of a collective self-critique. In contrast to later plenary speeches, which would assert the endless successes of the Union and of Albanian culture in general, the middle section of Kongoli’s speech is grim. For example, he writes: “Ne mund të themi me keqardhje se konferencat dhe leksionet me karakter ideoprofesional nuk janë ndjekur jo vetëm nga anëtarët e Lidhjes por shpesh herë edhe nga anëtarët e komitetit drejtonjës.” No one has been doing their job. No one has shown up to the meetings. None of the annual goals have been met. In fact, not only were the goals not met, but the following year no one even tried to address what hadn’t been done the year before. No one has made contact with artists in communities outside of Tirana. …and so on and so forth.

In perhaps the most damning sentence, Kongoli writes “Nuk është përfituar sa duhet nga eksperienca e artit sovjetik.” Reading these early assessments of Albanian culture reminds us that the assertions of complete cultural independence—of a kind of socialist cultural apex ex nihilo—that would characterize later socialist discourse in Albania in publications like Nëndori were not always the norm.